Prologue
Maya observed an ice cube, adrift in her steaming cup of coffee, as it began to fracture. The steam wafted up, fogging her glasses, as she watched the ice surrender to the heat. The cracks spread through the cube, tracing paths like the scars of a battle waged against the searing liquid. With a gentle nudge of her spoon, Maya probed the ice, its integrity compromised by the hot coffee. As she stirred, the granules of sugar swirled with the liquid, each crystal morphing to a deep amber before vanishing into the depths below.
As the surface of the coffee stilled, the eyes of her reflection in the coffee met her own—a Maya trapped within the confines of her coffee, a silent observer to her ritual. The brew, now calm, mirrored its initial state: dark, bitter, potent, unsweetened.
Why did she make the coffee this way? Maya harboured no affection for the bitter tang of black coffee, nor did she enjoy its scalding heat. To her, coffee was a sweet reprieve, a companion to seek solace with after the day’s end, not the relentless force that fuelled sleepless nights. She felt uneasy, as if she had been adhering to a script written by someone else’s desires.
In an act of subtle defiance, Maya introduced more ice to her cup, followed by another teaspoon of sugar. The coffee waged its quiet war against the new ice cubes, each a fragile victim to the coffee’s unyielding heat, while the sugar—like delicate memories—dissolved without a trace, leaving no evidence of its existence.
Memories. Those formed the core of Maya’s work. Despite being a research scientist, Maya liked thinking of the mind as a vast, turbulent sea, with memories like floating on its surface, some sinking into the depths of oblivion while others remained, stubbornly buoyant.
Maya set the cup of coffee on her desk and resumed work. A familiar logo that resembled an action-potential graph glowed on her laptop. Beneath it read Neuralink’s motto: For everything you remember, there is something you forget.
Chapter 1: Maya
Maya stumbled into the room, her laughter spilling into the dimly lit room like the first rays of dawn breaking through the darkest night—a sound that usually lit up Alex’s world but tonight, it grated. Her eyes sparkled with a cocktail of euphoria and alcohol, oblivious to the storm brewing in Alex’s gaze.
“Where have you been?” Alex’s voice was low and quiet.
Maya’s cheeks flushed with the warmth of alcohol, she danced a few steps, a giggle escaping her lips. “Out…with friends. It was fun, you should’ve come.”
“It’s three in the morning, Maya. Where were you?” Alex asked again, his voice raising.
Maya’s giggle faded as she tried to focus on his face.
“Do I mean anything to you, Maya?”
“Of course you do.” Maya slurred slightly, the alcohol dulling her senses, but not enough to miss the accusation in his tone. “You mean everything to me. You know that.”
“Do I?” His words were laced with a rage that verged on resentment. Alex stood abruptly, turning around to face Maya directly. “Were you out again, laughing, touching, kissing other guys?”
The accusation struck Maya with the force of a physical blow, sobering her instantly. “No, Alex!” She stumbled toward Alex.
“This is why I can’t… This is why we can’t move forward. I never know what you’re thinking, or what you think of me, of us. I never know what you’ll do next. You’re just so emotionally unpredictable. Unstable.”
The words punched Maya in the gut and tears welled up in her eyes. “Unstable? Because I went out to have fun? Because I want us to have a life beyond these walls? Because YOU cannot commit to me?” Her voice broke, the hurt evident. Maya felt the tears spill over. “You want stability, but you can’t offer it. You say I’m unstable, but you can’t even picture us together in the long term. You hold me to an impossible standard because you’re scared. Scared of what it means to really be with someone. Scared of losing me to imaginary drunk guys at a bar.”
Maya staggered back slightly. Maya’s voice dropped to barely a whisper, drowned out by the pounding in her ears. “I wish I had never met you.”
The silence that followed was oppressive, punctuated only by the sound of her hurried movements as she began to collect her scattered belongings. Each item she picked up—a stack of heavily-annotated research papers, a book left half-read on the nightstand, a sweater draped over the back of a chair, and a coffee cup that was yet to be cleaned—felt like a piece being ripped out from her heart. With shaky hands, Maya wrapped her fingers around the cold doorknob. The room was spinning again, but this time it was her world that was tilting on its axis. She wanted to argue, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, she felt her heart breaking, her hands go cold, and her body shiver. She drew a sharp breath but said nothing. There was nothing left to say.
Maya left, and that was the last of Alex she had seen.
The house, her anger, the coldness in her heart—all were slipping away. The house, Alex’s cries, Alex himself. The memory faded.
Maya found herself back in the kitchen, seated across Alex. Both their coffee cups were untouched, the bitter aroma blending with the bitterness that hung between them. Outside, the rain pattered against the window, a melancholy backdrop to the scene unfolding within.
Alex’s hands trembled slightly as he picked up his cup, a futile attempt to break the stillness in the room. “Maya, we need to talk about—”
“I know what this is about,” Maya cut in sharply, her voice laced with a coldness that made Alex flinch. She leaned forward, her eyes dark and unyielding. “You know as well as I do, that I don’t think we can work.”
Alex set his cup down, his heart sinking. “Maya, please.”
“No, Alex. I feel like we’re stuck. Like we’re not moving forward.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always hesitant about making plans for the future.”
“So, this is about commitment? About me not being ready to settle down? You want a ring? A marriage? Is that it? Was it the puppy that you wanted?” Alex laughed, but his laugh was bitter, void of any mirth. “We can barely keep our plants alive, Maya.”
The conversation escalated quickly. “It is exactly about commitment. I need more, Alex. I need to know that this is going somewhere, that I’m not just waiting around for you to decide you’re ready.” Maya’s response was icy, her voice cutting through the heated air. “I can’t do this anymore, Alex. I can’t.”
Alex’s face flushed with a mix of frustration and despair. Alex reached across the table, attempting to take Maya’s hands in his, but she recoiled as if his touch burned. “So, is that it? After everything, you’re just going to walk away like that? I love you, Maya. You’re going to give up on us?”
Alex’s words felt like chains, reminders of a time when she mistook suffocation for comfort. His words were empty—it was all a matter of time before they would turn into excuses, which would then become lies. The air in the house seemed to grow denser, the walls inching closer, as if the memory itself was conspiring to keep her trapped.
“I’m not giving up, Alex. I’m letting go.”
The house itself seemed to shrink. The whirr of the fans and droning of the radio around them blended into a cacophony. Bitter memories with Alex were leaves she wished to drown, yet here they were, surfacing despite her attempts to weigh them down with forgiveness or simply forgetfulness. Memories returned with unnerving vividness, razor-sharp, stripped of the merciful blur time imparts. Every quarrel, every tear shed, every word screamed in anger was relived with a painful intensity, bereft of the healing and growth that the grace of forgetting once offered.
Why do we cling to memories that hurt us?
The technology that had vowed to expand their cognitive abilities instead cast a spotlight on every fracture, every fault line within their bond, transforming their path into a minefield of old wounds and resurfacing pain. Maya felt the weight of unspoken words in her chest, a tightness that mirrored the constriction of realising that not all growth leads to togetherness; sometimes, it paves the way for paths to diverge.
This was why Neuralink needed to conduct trials for memory erasure. The advent of technology that offered infinite memory space made it clear that the human psyche was not designed to carry the weight of such unmitigated recall: the capacity to forget was as essential as the ability to remember.
Forgetting was not a betrayal but a mercy, a release from the chains that bound her to a past that no longer served her. In the end, memories, like leaves on the water, would drift away, leaving behind only the lessons they carried and the growth they spurred.
The scene shifted again.
Drip, drip, drip.
Maya’s hands were steady as she watched the dark liquid pool at the bottom of the cup, each drop a small punctuation in the pin-drop silence of their home. The aroma of the coffee, rich and strong, wafted through the kitchen, a scent that had become a staple in their routine on nights filled with critical work and the weight of impending challenges that awaited them with Neuralink’s first human trials. Alex had to prepare for an important surgery upcoming at Neuralink, a procedure that promised to push the boundaries of medical science. Black coffee had become a ritual on such nights, a silent ally that kept exhaustion at bay and sharpened focus. Maya had mastered the art of brewing it just as Alex liked—no sugar, no cream, just the unadulterated hot, black coffee, as she had made for Alex countless times before. Cradling the cup carefully, Maya knocked on Alex’s door.
The soft tap of her knock came louder than she intended, a gentle intrusion into the sanctum of Alex’s last-minute preparations.
“Come in.”
Surrounded by stacks of medical journals, Alex sat at his desk, a notebook open before him with each detail of the brain meticulously cataloged and each intricacy of the procedure reviewed. Alex’s face, etched with concentration and the faint shadows of fatigue, softened at the sight of Maya. “Thank you,” he whispered, the gratitude in his voice mingling with a weariness that was too familiar. He accepted the mug, his fingers brushing gently against Maya’s.
“I love you,” Maya whispered into Alex’s ear. Maya could not remember why she wanted to erase Alex. Looking into Alex’s eyes, she leaned down and pulled him into her arms into a light hug.
The memory faltered for a second.
Alex’s face was replaced by a blinding light, and the room had disappeared.
Maya lay strapped to the clinical bed. Standing beside her hospital bed, the surgeon’s face was the first she focused on. “Maya, you need to remain calm,” the surgeon attempted to soothe, reaching for her arm to administer more sedatives. The air held a sanitised crispness, and machines beeped softly in the background syncing with the palpitations of her heart. Maya looked around and tried moving her arms, but they were tangled in coloured wires. However, even within the haze of heavy anaesthesia, the clarity of her restored memories cut through her with surgical precision.
The sign above the door read, ERASURE Trial Two: Maya.
“I remember,” Maya began, her voice trailing off as she grappled with the weight of those two words. She lost consciousness once again.
Maya remembers the night she first met Alex. It was in a coffee shop tucked away in a corner by the ferry terminal. The day had stretched itself thin, drawn out by the relentless demands of her job. Maya worked as a researcher at Neuralink, a company that had just expanded operations from Fremont to Seattle. Ever since Neuralink had obtained FDA approval for human trials, Maya had found herself inexorably intertwined with the rapidly advancing technology. The company wasn’t just her employer; it had become a part of her very being. Surgeons at Neuralink had just operated on their first human test subjects; among other Neuralink’s employees, Maya was one of the first to receive the Neuralink implant. This tiny chip nestled within her brain—a product of years of her work—had expanded her cognitive horizons, transforming her memory from a mere repository of experiences into a vast, accessible database, enhancing her ability to process and retain information exponentially.
The company had become Maya’s second home, her work often stretching into the weary hours past midnight. Despite being physically drained, she was mentally wired, her enhanced mind constantly processing, analysing, storing. However, the toll of such dedication was a faithful companion, manifesting as a constant exhaustion that clung to Maya’s bones.
The coffee shop, with its vintage charm and soft pop singing in the background, felt like a cocoon, shielding Maya and Alex from the rain that was not quite a drizzle but almost like a misty sigh from the sky—a big, wet exhale that wrapped Seattle in a fine fog. Maya sat across from Alex. He worked at Neuralink as a surgeon, but they had never talked about anything but work.
“You know,” Alex began, his voice smooth and comforting, “meeting you out here, it’s like finding a piece of a puzzle I didn’t know was missing.”
Maya smiled, her heart fluttering, yet her smile didn’t reach the depths it once did. “And what picture does this puzzle make?” she asked, her voice tinged with a curiosity that felt more obligatory than genuine.
“A picture of possibilities,” he replied, his eyes locked on hers, earnest and unblinking.
Maya could not help but reflect on the irony of his words. The puzzle piece Alex spoke of was now a token of a memory she had already misplaced, a reminder of paths that should never have crossed.
Alex’s eyes looked into Maya’s. Maya blushed and looked down into her coffee cup.
Maya woke up.
Chapter 2: Alex
ERASURE Trial One: Alex.
“I’m sorry!”
In the labyrinth of Alex’s mind, the chase was on. Memories, once vivid and tangible, now flickered like dying stars, each one threatening to wink out of existence at any moment.
The memory began on a golden afternoon, the sun casting long shadows across the park where Alex and Maya first confessed their love. The laughter, the tears, the overwhelming joy of that moment played out like a scene from a movie, only this time, the darkness encroached on the edges, eating away at the scene with ravenous hunger.
Alex, trapped within his younger self, felt the panic rise like bile. He could see Maya, so vibrant and alive, unaware of the fate that awaited them. “Run!” he wanted to scream, but the words wouldn’t come. He was a prisoner in his own body, forced to watch as the memory began to crumble around them.
They ran, hand in hand, through the rapidly disintegrating park, dodging shadows that snapped at their heels like beasts from a nightmare. Maya’s laughter, so full of life, echoed in Alex’s ears, a haunting melody amid the chaos of loss.
“Why are we running?” Maya asked, giggling. Her cheerful voice broke through the despair. In the memory, Maya was oblivious to the danger, to the relentless escape from oblivion.
“To save us,” Alex whispered, the words lost to the past, unheard and unheeded. The irony was a cruel knife, twisting in his heart. Here, in this moment, Maya was alive, real, and yet so impossibly out of reach.
The park gave way to the city streets, a maze of concrete and neon that twisted and turned on itself. The chase was a blur of motion, a desperate attempt to outrun the inevitable. Buildings crumbled, streets vanished, and the world they knew was swallowed whole by the encroaching darkness.
In a last, desperate bid to preserve the memory of Maya, Alex tried to imprint every detail of her into the most primal and untouched corners of his mind—his brain. The parts that were flesh, fat, and blood. The parts that were composed of pulsing neurons. The parts that worked without the Neuralink chip. The curve of her smile, the warmth of her hand, the light in her eyes. The tightness of her hug, her body against his. The way she says his name. The way she would sleep with her hand resting gently on his chest and her head nestled in the nook of his neck.
“Alex!” Maya called. She had stopped running to turn around and look at him. They had reached the bridge where they had shared their first kiss. Maya beamed and pulled him in towards her. “Alex.”
The memory shattered. The ground beneath their feet cracked open into a chasm of nothingness that threatened to consume them whole. Alex yelled. He reached out to grab Maya, but he missed.
Alex watched, powerless, as Maya fell into the darkness, the details of her face blurring into obscurity. “I love you,” Alex tried to shout, but the words were swallowed by the void.
And then, silence.
Chapter 3: Epilogue
The smell of coffee fills the air. Maya stirs sugar into her coffee and watches each crystal sink and dissolve into the milky brown. Maya prods at the buoyant ice cubes, with cracks forming at the edges. Alex sits down across Maya, a cup of black coffee in hand.
“Hey, I’m Alex.”
The rain blurs the view of Seattle out of the window.
Artist’s Statement
This story follows Alex and Maya, two test subjects at Neuralink. Alex works as a surgeon and Maya a researcher. Alex and Maya meet and eventually enter a relationship, which at some point turns bitter. Alex volunteers himself to be a lab rat for Neuralink’s human trials, erasing Maya. Maya eventually does the same, erasing Alex. However, it is suggested that Maya and Alex meet again, and enter another relationship. The central theme is that some aspects of human existence, particularly the complexity of emotions, our choices, and the nature of personal growth, cannot be engineered, controlled, or manipulated through technology. Ultimately, the story cautions readers of the limits of technological intervention in human cognition and memory.
This story has undergone several major revisions. In particular, I have revised the story to wipe their memories in reverse chronological order to delve deeper into both the “good” and the “bad” parts of Alex and Maya’s relationship. This plays on how when their memories are erased in reverse chronological order, they no longer remember the more recent “bad” parts of their relationship. As they go further back in time, they experience again they happier memories they share. This causes them to cling harder onto memories as they are being erased.
Additionally, I also played with incorporating black coffee as a recurring symbol in the story and how it was a drink that Maya would make for Alex, so that after they had both erased their memories of each other, Maya (in the prologue) made black coffee for herself only out of habit. The sugar in the coffee is like our memories, sweetening life’s brew yet ultimately fading into obscurity, leaving seemingly no trace behind. To Neuralink, the past is restored. Yet, within us, we will know that something has shifted. In the epilogue, Maya and Alex meet again, seemingly starting anew – both drinking their preferred type of coffee in the epilogue.
Lastly, I made the transitions between each jump in memory more apparent, which complements the first major revision that linearised the timeline of the story. These changes improve the overall clarity of the story. The story also mentions a few recurrent metaphors which make the story more engaging and thought-provoking, such as leaves in a sea of memories and ice cubes that crack like humans do. Overall, the changes create a more cohesive and accessible storyline.
In all, I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you!